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Kodi (XBMC) Media Center

Kodi(formerly known as XBMC) is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media center for playing videos, music, pictures, games, and more. Kodi runs on Linux, OSX, Windows, iOS, and Android, featuring a 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most videos, music, podcasts, and other digital media files from local and network storage media and the internet. Our forums and Wiki are bursting with knowledge and help for the new user right up to the application developer. We also have helpful Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Youtube pages.

Kodi can play all your music including AAC, MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV and WMA formats. It has cue sheet, tagging support, MusicBrainz integration, and smart playlists for ultimate control of your music collection.

Kodi can do movies too! Supporting all the main video formats and sources, including streamable online media, ISOs, 3D, H.264, HEVC, WEBM. Kodi can import these movies with full posters, fanart, disc-art, actor information, trailers, video extras, and more.

The TV shows library supports episode and season views with posters or banners, watched tags, show descriptions and actors. Video nodes/tags and smart playlists can further organize your library for special interests, making specific screens for sci-fi, anime, etc.

Import pictures into a library and browse the different views, start a slideshow, sort or filter them all using your remote control.

Kodi allows you to watch and record live TV all from the GUI interface. It works with a number of popular backends including MediaPortal, MythTV, NextPVR, Tvheadend, VDR, Windows Media Center, and more.

With UPnP compatibility you can stream to and from any other Kodi instances and play to other UPnP compatible devices in your home with ease. Have one UPnP master device and use other Kodi instances as clients which automatic keeps you watched status and library up-to-date. You can also now import from uPnp sources to synchronize your data inside instances of Kodi.

2.1 Adding videos to the library

Step 2: Select Files, then select “Add Videos”. Note: if you do not see an option “Add Videos”, you need to enable it by going to Settings > Appearance > File Lists > Show ‘add source’ buttons.

Step 3: The “Add Video Source” screen will be displayed. Then select the “Browse” button.

Note: You can also type a local or network file path directly into this box, if you already know the address/path. For example, smb://192.162.0.4 could be typed in directly and saved, which will skip the “browsing” step.

Step 4: Now browse to where you keep your videos stored. Once you have found the folder you keep your videos in, select the “OK” button. If you keep them shared on a network drive, read the Configuring PC Shares article for more information about setting up a share on your computer first.

Step 5: Name this Video Source however you like. If it is a movie folder, you will probably want to name it “Movies”, and if it is a TV Show folder then you will probably want name it TV Shows. The name doesn’t matter to Kodi. Then select “OK”.

Step 6: The set content window will display, this is where you tell Kodi what type of media is in the folder. Press the down arrow until you reach the correct type (in this example movies)

2.2 Adding music to the library

In order to be able to include information on your music collection in the library, Kodi needs your music to be tagged. When your collection is scanned, Kodi stores all the tagging information (artist, album, year, genre, etc) in the database which allows you to efficiently search and manage your music collection. Today most media applications and players (e.g. iTunes / iPod) organize music by this ID tag information.

Note: Your audio files must have a valid ID tag for them to work properly in the Kodi music library.

2.3 Adding pictures

Adding sources for your pictures follows the same method as adding other media sources. From the Home Page navigate to Pictures, select Add Source and browse to the location of your picture files.

3 Using a remote control

In Kodi the primary environment was designed for the living room (10-foot interface) and controlling it only with a remote control. While Kodi does support mouse, keyboard, and even touch controls, the main method of controlling Kodi is designed around is the typical remote. This further enhances the appliance feel of the Kodi and fits next to (or replaces) the other remotes that are likely to be in your entertainment room.

4 Kodi add-ons

Add-ons are packages that add features and functions not normally included with Kodi. Add-ons are developed by people on Team Kodi and third-parties. Kodi has a growing list of community driven add-ons for online content like YouTube, Hulu, Grooveshark, Pandora Radio, as well as skins (themes) and more available from a common official repository, while still enabling third-party developers to also host their own unofficial repositories for add-ons that any user can choose to add themselves if they like.
For this example a skin is being installed, the same method is used for other add-ons.

Select Install from repository -> Select the repository (if only one repository is installed, then you will automatically go into that repo) -> Select the add-on category -> Select the add-on -> Select Install

Step 1: Select Install from repository

Step 2: Select the repository you want to install from. If you haven’t added any additional repos and are only using the default Kodi.tv add-on repo, then you will automatically be placed in this folder.

Step 3 Select the add-on category, in this case Look and feel (applies to Kodi Jarvis and up only).

Step 4: Select the add-on sub-category, in this case Skin.

Step 5: Select the add-on you want to install, in this case the skin Ace.

Step 6: A summary dialog will be brought up allowing you to see various properties of the add-on. Select Install to begin automatic downloading and installation.

Step 7: In the case of skin installation you’ll be asked if you want to change to the installed skin immediately.

When the add-on has finished downloading Kodi will enable it and depending on the add-on ask if you want to start using it. Add-ons will then appear in their appropriate section (e.g. skins in the appearance section of settings, movie scrapers in the options of scrapers when adding a new movie source)

5 Changing the look and feel of Kodi

Kodi is unlike many contemporary media and gaming centers, in that it can be easily customized to look completely different using skins while still remaining equally as useable and providing access to all your videos, music, and more.